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February 22, 2011 (DURHAM, NC) – Triangle Modernist Houses (TMH), the award-winning non-profit organization dedicated to archiving, preserving and promoting modernist residential design, is featured in the “Advocacy Spotlight” for the month of February in the Docomomo-US Newsletter.

Dcocomomo is an acronym for the DOcumentation and COnservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the MOdern Movement. Founded in 1988 in The Netherlands, Docomomo has national chapters, or “working parties,” in 54 countries and over 2000 individual members. It is an important presence in conservation and in the worldwide architectural culture, working in partnership with other international organizations, national governments, and regional and national associations. Docomomo-US is the national chapter for the United States.

The February newsletter’s Advocacy Spotlight notes that TMH is “one of the largest single archives for residential modern in the United States.” It discusses why the Triangle region of North Carolina has the third largest collection of modernist houses in the nation: “…due in large part to Henry Kamphoefner, the founding Dean of the NC State University School of Design (now College of Design) who recruited top faculty and insisted that they practice as well as teach. Their output was prolific but almost completely undocumented, until the formation of Triangle Modernist in 2007.”

The Spotlight also notes: “TMH maintains a rapidly growing collection of audio, video, and document archives featuring Modernist architects both living and deceased, including over 130 in North Carolina.”

February 23, 2011 (CHARLOTTE, NC) – The Lassiter House, the oldest identified Modernist house in Charlotte, and one of the few designed by architect A.G. Odell still standing, will be torn down if not sold by June.

The house’s only owners put their three-bedroom, three-bath house in Charlotte’s Eastover neighborhood on the market in 2010. Triangle Modernist Houses (TMH), the state’s award-winning non-profit organization for Modernist residential architecture, today issued a National Alert on the Lassiter House. (The group’s last National Alert saved the historic Carr House in Durham designed by architect Kenneth Scott.)

“When most people in the Triangle area think ‘modernist houses,’ they don’t realize that there are some true gems in Rocky Mount and Greenville,” said George Smart, TMH founder and director. “They’ll change their minds after they see these gorgeous homes.”

This series focuses on black design professionals before 1970, those “who followed their hearts into architecture despite great resistance from both society and their own industry,” says George Smart, TMH founder and director. Mechanics and Farmers Bank, The Michael Okoli Agency, and architect Arthur Clement provided financial support for the series.

“Today there are many minority architects in North Carolina, but before 1970 it was another story, and not a nice one,” Smart says. “The field of architecture made choosing the profession nearly impossible for minorities. In North Carolina, there were almost none for decades.”